Ruther­glen’s wine fu­ture

THE Ruther­glen wine re­gion has seen a strong in­crease in visi­ta­tion over the last 18 months, with Ruther­glen wines ex­pe­ri­enc­ing a re­nais­sance amongst wine lovers, in par­tic­u­lar for­ti­fied wines.

Mus­cat is see­ing in­creased sales and pop­u­lar­ity in the re­gion, thanks to some con­certed mar­ket­ing ef­forts from Wine­mak­ers of Ruther­glen, Des­ti­na­tion Ruther­glen and the Indigo Shire Coun­cil.

Belinda Cham­bers, Chair of Wine­mak­ers of Ruther­glen ex­plains, “Across the board Ruther­glen is ex­pe­ri­enc­ing a resur­gence in de­mand for for­ti­fied wine as the mar­ket ex­pands into younger age brack­ets.

“There is a no­tice­able shift to­wards a younger for­ti­fied drinker.”

The fed­eral govern­ment and Indigo Shire Coun­cil, along with pri­vate con­trib­u­tors, are in­vest­ing more than $1.8 mil­lion on up­grades and im­prove­ments to the Ruther­glen town­ship.

Indigo Shire Mayor Cr James Tren­ery said the Coun­cil had con­fi­dence in the po­ten­tial for growth of the Ruther­glen re­gion.

“We are spend­ing $1.84 mil­lion on Ruther­glen to boost eco­nomic growth and tourism, and just re­cently the Fed­eral Govern­ment an­nounced $2 mil­lion fund­ing for plan­ning on an al­ter­na­tive heavy ve­hi­cle route to get trucks out of the Main Street of Ruther­glen.

“This is all very pos­i­tive and points to a grow­ing econ­omy in the Ruther­glen re­gion.”

Wine­mak­ers of Ruther­glen, Des­ti­na­tion Ruther­glen and the Indigo Shire Coun­cil are all work­ing closely to fur­ther build on the strong eco­nomic cli­mate in Ruther­glen.